One of the most hated players in the NHL, New York Rangers forward Sean Avery, courageously voiced his support for New York marriage equality this week. So why the hell has Todd Reynolds, vice president of the Canadian hockey management group Uptown Sports bothered calling Avery’s support “misguided”? If he feels that way about Avery’s 30-second video, imagine how he must feel about the 6 years of legalized gay marriage in Canada.

Reynolds later defended his comments saying, I believe in morality and I believe in right and wrong. I know many people with different view points for what is right and wrong… But I’m a little disappointed in some of the response. If you oppose a viewpoint, you’re immediately targeted by some people as a hater, a bigot, intolerant, homophobic and many other terms. That’s obviously not the case for people who know me. … I don’t hate anyone. And I’m certainly not a bigot. But I believe in marriage between one man and one woman.”

Todd’s father and president of Uptown sports Don Reynolds the defended his son’s comment by opining that the majority of Canadians don’t support gay marriage because “man and woman were created to be married, not man and man or man and horse, you know?” Wow. Man and horse, eh? Maybe Don and Rick Santorum should go on a moonlit boatride.

AfterElton put it best:

A quick lesson for Todd: if you put “marriage” in scare quotes when describing the legal, state-sanctioned union between two people of the same sex, then you are a bigot.

When you deny committed gay and lesbian couples the 1,138 federal benefits that come along with legally-recognized marriage, then you are in fact a bigot.

When you defend such exclusion by hiding behind your faith while you continue to indulge in “other abominations” unto the Lord like ingesting shrimp and wearing clothes made of two fabrics, you are in fact a bigot and what’s worse, a hypocrite.

We’d also say to Todd that if your nearest analogy to same-sex marriage is bestiality, then you’re not only a bigot, you’re also a freak.

That being said, we’re wondering whether we’ll hear from any of the players that Uptown Sports represents. How do they like being represented by freakish bigots?

I love how the guy claims this isn’t “Hatred or Bigotry” towards gays and he is saying people get attacked for “Expressing a viewpoint”.

Um, Todd, Reynolds, if you expressed the viewpoint that Women working outside the home wasn’t moral, and that they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, or did the same with minorities, do you think anybody would believe it wasn’t motivated by bigotry or hatred? Nope? yeah, same with this.

You don’t get to attack an entire group of people and then try to play the victim.

May 10, 2011 at 1:05 pm · @Reply ·

Tony

This IS the far Christian Right’s new plan. The plan to play the victim every time someone points out they’re bigots.

We can not let them get away with this, we HAVE to call them out on it every time they try it.

May 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm · @Reply ·

scott ny'er

Kudos to Sean for doing that, first of all (I want him to get better glasses to really show off his good looks, tho).

Boo to Todd, the douche and his dad.

May 10, 2011 at 2:08 pm · @Reply ·

Gonzalo

“AfterElton put it best”
Isn’t that a little disingenuous? Both this post and the one on AfterElton were apparently written by Daniel Villareeal, so it’s a little weird to see you sneakily patting yourself in the back.

May 10, 2011 at 2:28 pm · @Reply ·

urmum

HAHAHA wow, great post!

If you would have told me that a pro Hockey player had made a pro-gay psa thing Sean Avery would have been near the bottom of my list of guesses. Pretty cool of him, though.

May 10, 2011 at 6:33 pm · @Reply ·

Andy

I don’t hate Jews, I just don’t believe in Jew marriage. Everyone is equal! No offense ya’ll!

May 11, 2011 at 3:02 pm · @Reply ·

Mk_Ultra_Again

If you believe gays are inferior to you, that they don’t deserve the same rights, and that they shouldn’t be visible in society – that is bigotry. Of course it’s his right to hold and express it but please…let’s call a spade a spade. Own it. Stop childishly hiding behind religion, passive aggressively stating “hate the sin, love the sinner”, “it’s just a different opinion” or the many other euphemisms and semantics bigotry hides under.

May 13, 2011 at 5:29 pm · @Reply ·

Ash

I take offense to his father claiming that “the majority of Canadians don’t support gay marriage.” Where’s your proof of that, buddy? Do not claim to for speak me or my fellow Canadians. We’ve had gay marriage across the country for years, nobody except for the bigots like you give a shit.